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Now everyone can make money from their videos, as YouTube opens its Partner Program to all

You may or may not already know this, but YouTube’s Partner Program is an initiative by the Google-owned video-streaming platform to help creators develop skills, build audiences and – crucially – earn some bucks.

YouTube has now announced that its expanding the eligibility to the program across the twenty countries that it’s available in, meaning it’s not just those with the popular videos who are invited to join the scheme.

The YouTube Partner Program is currently available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.

“We’re excited to provide more creators with the opportunity to become partners and have access to programs and resources to help them be successful on YouTube,” said YouTube in the announcement. “These programs will be tailored to partners based on their specific needs. We also recognize that custom thumbnails and banners are sought-after features by many creators. We are working on making these and other features available to more newly-made partners over time, like we have done with long uploads and monetization.”

So, it hasn’t entirely opened its doors yet…certain customizations are still being reserved for those with one foot firmly in the ‘popular creator’ camp for the time-being.

Prior to this, the program was only open to producers of the most popular video content, who could gain additional privileges and choose to run advertising on their videos in return for a share of the spoils. But now it’s open to anyone who’s up for making some dollars from their finely crafted videos. If nothing else, this should encourage the casual creator to put a bit more effort into their home-made kitten flicks.

You can follow all the creator news here, and all partner initiatives are identified with a new gold play icon.